Angel
by sunsetbabe17
Summary: ONE-SHOT. Warren Worthington the third, an Angel with two faces.


Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Some parts are directly taken from X-Men the Last Stand a novelization by Chris Claremont. _Italics are flashbacks._

**Angel**

Warren Worthington the third had entered one of his father's clinics through the back entrance and now sat waiting in one of the offices. He was waiting to take the cure that his father had funded, all because of him. Because his one and only son was a mutant.

As he waited he thought back on when he first knew he was a mutant. Well if he was honest with himself there were signs, clues well before the physical manifestation of his powers. He could consume so much food and yet still have trouble not losing weight. His vision was scary good, which was why he stopped playing baseball cause the pitchers would always walk him instead of giving him the chance to hit the ball, which of course he would with an uncanny accuracy if it was anywhere near the strike zone.

He remembered the time he went to conduct his own vision test since he drove his optometrist crazy with his superior vision. One day he went to the airport and he could read the numbers on the airplanes without the use of the binoculars. That day he had caught sight of a red tailed hawk flying on the breeze. And he was so entranced by it that he hadn't realized how close he was to the edge until a woman had hauled him back telling him to remember that he did not have wings. If only she could see him now.

He had wanted to be just like that hawk that day and soar in the sky and now he could.

When the wings first started to grow, Warren was frightened and had no idea what was happening to him. It was not normal, so he grabbed a boning knife from the kitchen and fled to the bathroom. There he stripped off his shirt and used the mirror to saw off the bony protrusions. Blood stained the tiled floors and little tufts of white feathers floated down.

_Suddenly his father was at the door, "Warren?"_

"_Just a second!" He scrambled to finish and hide the evidence, but he wasn't fast enough as his father burst through the door after Warren had not responded to his repeated calls._

"_No!" he gasped at the sight of the blood. Then his eyes trailed over his son's body and he saw the wings, "Oh God no! Not you Warren, not my boy!" His son was a mutant!_

"_I'm sorry," Warren sniffled as the tears ran down his face, ashamed at what he was and feeling that somehow, in some way he had failed his father._

Everything was different after that. His father never looked at him the same and threw all his time and money into finding a cure for this affliction that ailed his son.

Warren had to hide his wings, always wearing baggy clothes and keeping his wings tightly restrained to his back. He was pulled from school, and home schooled by the best money could buy. His wings would have been a little hard to hide in a locker room and this was the easiest way to get around that. His father said it was to keep him safe. There was a lot of hatred towards mutants. However, Warren always thought his being a mutant was just his father's dirty little secret. He didn't want to tarnish his image with a freak for a son. And that's when it all started.

"_Hey guys," a young Warren ran over to some of the boys that he used to attend school with. But they just ignored him and continued to play their video game._

"_Whatcha playin'?" he continued to try and get their attention._

"_The rich boy no longer too cool to be seen with us? Come to play with the peasants," one of the boy's sneered._

_Warren's mouth dropped open in shock and anger. Hurt that that's what his supposed friends thought of him. But he couldn't tell them the real reason he was no longer in school with them, that he was a mutant. _

_So quickly schooling his features he became what they thought, "Well I'm just on my way to pick up the new Batman game anyway. You know the one that doesn't even come out 'til Friday."_

What his father didn't know was that whenever he could Warren would let his wings loose and fly into the night sky when no one could see him.

"It's time," Warren took a deep breath and wiped his sweaty palms on his pants as he followed the doctor out the door.

The two, muscular orderlies walked beside him, but he wondered if they were really there for his protection or to ensure that he took the cure. He was pulled forward toward his father.

"Hello, Warren," Kavita said brightly. She was ignored; if that bothered her, she gave no sign.

"You okay, son?" Worthington asked, like a man biting a bullet, or a boy slugging down medicine. He got a shallow nod in return, from a son that seemed unsure how to answer. "Did you sleep all right?"

"Yeah I guess."

"You know I'm proud of you, for doing this."

Warren took off his overcoat, revealing an open shirt, and underneath, a complex leather harness reminiscent of a straightjacket, only the young man's arms were completely unrestrained.

"The transformation can be a little jarring," Kavita cautioned. Sweat popped on Warren's brow, suggesting that wasn't an altogether helpful thing to say.

"Dad," Warren asked pleadingly, the sheer desperation in his tone catching his father's heartstrings, taking him back to the nights he'd sat with his boy after lights-out, staying with him until he fell asleep to protect him from the monsters under the bed. "Dad," Warren repeated with more intensity, displaying more overt fright. "Can we…can we…talk about this a second?"

Worthington took his son's hand. "We talked about it, son. We agreed. It will all be over soon."

But Warren wouldn't stop squirming. Things got worse as he tried to wriggle his way loose from the orderlies, from his father.

"Wait," he demanded. "Just _wait_ a minute!"

Worthington Jr. tried his "dad" voice: "Warren, calm down!"

"I…no…I can't do this!"

"Just relax, son," Worthington Jr. tried in a more placating tone. The orderlies were having an increasingly harder time holding on.

The young man's struggles had loosened the harness to the point where Warren could actively strain against it. The orderlies were built for the job-they looked a match for pro linemen, twice Warren's size and change in every way.

But he shrugged them off as if they weighed nothing, and they smacked against the walls of the spacious office.

He showed no interest in the guards as he tore at his shirt, yanking it open to the sound of popping buttons. He flexed his chest with a great outcry…

…and the industrial-grade belting leather shredded like tissue paper, reminding Worthington Jr. of an article he'd read when he was younger about the wings of large birds. The wings of a goose propel that great bird through the sky for thousands of miles. A swan's wing, that thing of poetic beauty, can break a man's arm.

How much more powerful then, those of a man, capable of lifting him from the ground and hurling him through the air? How strong were muscles required to sustain that flight?

Beholding his son, Worthington Jr. couldn't help but think of the flights of angels he'd seen depicted in catechism class, and of all the representations of doomed Icarus.

The fantasy failed in comparison to the reality.

Warren's wings stretched twice his height and more, tip-to-tip across a back that suddenly seemed much broader and indecently muscled than his father remembered. They were a pristine white that was almost radiant. The orderlies were so dumbstruck with the incandescent beauty of the man and the moment that they almost forgot their purpose.

Dr. Kavita Rao looked upon him in wonder as she saw his magnificent wings unfurled behind him. He looked just like an angel! Then, as usual the look of awe quickly turned into the look of disgust and horror he was used to as people saw the unnatural sight. A human with wings!

"Warren," the father tried when words came back to him, "it's a better life we offer. It's what we all want!"

Looking down at his father, Warren replied with a harsh and unforgiving scream: "_No!_

The orderlies had withdrawn to the doorway once Warren's wings had opened, and they'd summoned reinforcements. There was no escape that way.

"It's what _you_ want!" Warren yelled. Seeing guards in a phalanx at the door, he ducked towards the windows.

"Warren, _don't_," cried his father. "_No!"_

And just like that with a resounding crack, he was gone.

Glass rained down onto the street below as he burst forth and spread his wings, taking flight.

The sun warmed his wings as he soared away. This, this is what _he_ wanted. He wanted to fly. He wanted to fly among the clouds and get lost in the immense vastness of the sky. He wanted to touch the sun.

He raised his hand and knocked on the door. He was going to stop hiding behind the mask of Warren Worthington the third and be free as Angel.


End file.
